The 151st birth anniversary of the freedom fighter Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das was celebrated by his great grandson on Friday.
“I wanted to celebrate 150 years of my great grandfather. But the pandemic put brakes on the plan last year. In the future, I want to scale up this programme,” said Jaidip Mukerjea, former India Davis Cup captain.
The celebration was held at the Jaidip Mukerjea Tennis Academy in Salt Lake.
“The younger generation seems to have forgotten C.R. Das,” he said.
A former president of the Indian National Congress, the founder of Swaraj Party, defender of Indian revolutionaries and mentor to Subhas Chandra Bose, Das wore many hats.
He was born in 1870 in Bikrampur, near Dhaka. Das completed his graduation from Presidency College in 1890. In England, he practised law at The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple at London. In 1894, he came back to India and started practising as a barrister at Calcutta High Court. In 1908 he defended Aurobindo Ghose in the Alipore bomb case. His brilliant handling led to the acquittal of Ghose.
Das left a lucrative legal career to plunge into the freedom struggle.
In 1923, Das founded the Swaraj Party with Motilal Nehru and a young Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy.
He died on June 16, 1925.